Saturday, August 6, 2016

This morning Wild Oats XI smashed the Club Marine Brisbane to Keppel Tropical Yacht Race record shaving almost eight hours of the time they set in 2011. The Mark Richard’s skippered super-maxi crossed the finish line in Keppel Bay at 3:56:30 am under a moonless starry sky.

Photo: Andrea Francolini

The boat averaged 20 knots for most of the race and clocked an elapsed time of 16 hours, 56 minutes and 30 seconds.

Photo: Andrea Francolini

“It was just a beautiful race right from the start. Good breeze and the guys did a great job. A few rain squalls slowed us down for a little while near the Breaksea Spit and apart from that you just couldn’t ask for a better night’s sailing,” Richards said.

Photo: Lulu Roseman

“We finished a lot quicker than we thought we would and it’s a great record and I think one that will be sticking around for quite a while. It’s a really enjoyable race and a good one for us to clock up more ocean miles on the boat. We are getting back out there and doing as many miles as we can and that’s what we are here to do and this race is a good one for that. It was all good fun,” he added.

Photo: Lulu Roseman

The second boat to cross the finish line was Peter Harburg’s sleek V70 Black Jack from the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron finished at 5:34 am with a time of 18 hours and 34 minutes.

Photo: Andrea Francolini

Skipper Mark Bradford explained what happened on the start line when they lead Wild Oats XI for the first part of the race.

Photo: Lulu Roseman

“As soon as we deployed our spinnaker right on the start line we went from 10 to 20 knots in a heartbeat. It’s unusual to ever see WOXI behind anyone at the start as they excel at that.

Photo: Andrea Francolini

“We stayed between them and Alive for the most of race. The wave train off Fraser Island pretty much dictated the boat speed – apart from WOXI – so everyone was doing roughly the same speed because you are locked into the waves. That type of seaway makes it easier to do gybes at in the higher wind speeds of 20-25 knots,” Bradford said.

Photo: Tim Wiseman

“We are pretty happy with our result on the water given a 30 metre longer boat only beta us by 90 minutes. That’s close and they are very hard to get close to. We have reduced our crew down to just 10 in an attempt to make the boat go faster. We are now a half pro and half amateur team,” he added.

The Brisbane to Keppel Race is special to the Brisbane based sailmaker who runs North Sails because it is the first race the Black Jack campaign won on their previous Reichel Pugh 66 (now Alive).

“It is a special race for us and means a lot. We won line honours and the race record in 2009. We love racing in Queensland and any opportunity to represent our club in home waters is always special.”

2 comments:

The clear weather must have contributed to Wild Oats' winning against Club Marine Brisbane making their competition much easier as opposed to fighting under a daunting weather condition. There will always be a winner in every match and to the losing team, there is always next season and it is the opportunity for you to build up your team.